This week let’s write a poem about a heap. What’s in the heap is up to you. Could be something shiny, something tinkly, something stinky. Could be something less substantial, like an emotion. Post your heap of a poem below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is one of the organizers of Living Poetry, a collection of poets and poetry lovers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
Living Poetry 
A Heap of Discontent
Lines are drawn
The trenches deep
There’s a rumble of regret
Will it tumble this stinking heap?
Welcome to the brouhaha
Let’s vote out all the creeps
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 22, 2018, 12:08 PMHear! Hear!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 22, 2018, 8:05 PMAccording to the inheritance of Tidewater Virginia, there are things which can come in heaps, and there are other things which can come in messes. Greens come in messes, love comes in heaps. If you offered your company greens in heaps with a mess of love, then perhaps you were a vernacular poet.
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Posted by Jeremy Ray Jewell | October 22, 2018, 12:47 PMVery nice but can one have half a mess of greens or half a heap of love?
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 22, 2018, 8:07 PM“Mess” was brought from 17-18th century rural Sussex where it meant simply a “prepared dish”. If one asks for “half a mess” at Thanksgiving it would seem silly, since all diners would be partaking of a single mess of whatever. But maybe the cook could say, “oh, I’ll only make half a mess” as a humorous suggestion to make only half of what was expected or intended. I suppose you could get away with referring to a serving as a “mess”, but it doesn’t strike me as divisible, still. “Heap” is generally used in either “a heap” or “a whole heap”, the latter certainly suggesting divisibility, but probably with humorous effects as well. “I love you half a heap” would always be referring back to the original expression, “a whole heap”. I can readily imagine someone right now saying “he was in half a heap of trouble, I tell you what”. Sounds nice.
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Posted by Jeremy Ray Jewell | October 22, 2018, 8:32 PMAnd in the case of my imagined “half a heap of trouble” I believe the meaning would actually be “he was in more than a whole heap of trouble”. I can’t explain how that works but it just does.
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Posted by Jeremy Ray Jewell | October 22, 2018, 8:35 PMSounds like something that belong with a classic blue rift.
I had woman… (ba dum ba dum music punctuation)
Loved her a heap
but she’s long gone
Her mess of greens wasn’t deep
…
I dunno. Stop!
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 22, 2018, 11:37 PMTrickle Down
My boss’s boss lives a few floors above.
He’s a nice enough guy, we can talk sports
but he’s used to sitting in the skybox
while I’m in the cheap seats.
His boss lives in the penthouse
with an express elevator
to a private multicar garage
but I can tell when he’s home
because there’s a leak in his toilet
he won’t fix since he isn’t bothered
but the mess gets bigger the further it flows,
heaping upon the poor and middle class alike.
There’s only one thing trickling down,
dear reader, and it ain’t money.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 22, 2018, 9:32 PM👀!!! 🙂
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 22, 2018, 11:38 PM“I liberated one of those fancy, meshy office chairs and called it ‘Trickle Down Ergonomics'” – MC Paul Barman, “Bleeding Brain Grow”
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Posted by Jeremy Ray Jewell | October 23, 2018, 12:07 AM